


Aftermath

by justaddfiction



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Gen, Novelization, Post-Volume 3 (RWBY), but i was reorganizing my folders today and thought what the hell, i wrote this a while ago but never meant for it to see the sun, so here's this garbage fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 19:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12514364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justaddfiction/pseuds/justaddfiction
Summary: Yang looks for Blake at the Battle of Beacon.A while later, she finds herself in a hospital bed hearing nothing but bad news.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> I am eternally salty that we never got a scene like this. Why couldn't we have seen some immediate reactions to everything that happened in the Battle of Beacon? Not even in a flashback? Come on.

"Blake! Blaaaaaaaaake!"  
  
Yang ran through the chaos, searching frantically for her missing partner. Around her, people were screaming, Grimm were running wild, and fires burned unchecked. The school where she'd spent the last year, where she'd met her best friends, had turned into hell on earth.  
  
She fought her way across campus, but every time she came upon a gap in the chaos, intrusive memories of the last few hours played like movie clips across her mind. Penny, quartered and scattered across the arena floor. Atlesian knights shooting at civilians. Uncle Qrow, _“Sometimes bad things just happen.”_ Weiss, panting and exhausted, explaining that Ruby and Blake were both missing. Alpha grimm in Beacon’s courtyard. A black chess piece over a glowing red background.

But worry brought Blake to her mind most prominently. Blake’s voice, filled with fear both old and new. _“I want to believe you.”_ Her old partner was a monster, and her new partner was following in his footsteps. _“Yang, are you okay?”_ That scroll call was the last time anyone but Weiss had heard from her, and all Weiss had to say was that she’d gone after an Alpha, and some members of the White Fang. She could be anywhere, and she wasn’t answering her scroll.  
  
Yang ran toward the dining hall, still calling for Blake. As she yelled, White Fang members and creatures of grimm alike approached her, but she punched them aside almost absentmindedly. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she worried about her aura level, but pushed away the thought in favor of finding her missing teammate.

“Blake, where _are_ you?” she called, growing increasingly worried. She looked all around her for long black hair, coattails, a bow hiding cat ears.  
Suddenly she heard an agonizing scream from inside the hall. Terror gripped her as she realized it was Blake’s voice. “Huh?” she said, fear creeping into her voice as she turned toward the source of the cry. There, in the ruins of the dining hall, was a scene that made her blood run cold.

A tall man, dressed in black and red and wearing a White Fang mask, was towering over Blake, who was lying prone in the rubble. He pulled his sword from where it was lodged in her stomach, and as he did so, she cried out in pain again.  
The world seemed to stop.   _Not Blake, not Blake, please not Blake_ , Yang thought desperately. The familiar sensation of building anger, pushing her to use her semblance, was for once undercut by fear.  
  
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" She shouted at the figure, cocking Ember Celica and brandishing them behind her. As she watched, Blake reached a trembling hand toward her and grasped weakly, pleading something Yang couldn’t hear. The man sheathed his sword and _smirked_.  
Pure rage overtook Yang, and her semblance activated. Her hair ignited and her eyes flashed to red. With a primal cry, she launched herself towards him on a shotgun blast from her gauntlets, aiming to kill.  
  
The man in black and red made one quick, fluid motion with his sword, and suddenly Yang couldn't feel the lower portion of her right arm. She couldn't feel anything at all, except unimaginable burning pain. For a single, horrific moment, she saw her right forearm fall away from the bleeding stump where it had been before she blacked out.

***  
  
When she came to, she was lying in a hospital bed. Worried and tense voices were punctuated by the electronic beeping of medical equipment. She sat up and attempted to prop herself up on her hands. She remembered with a pang of shock that she no longer had both of them. Steeling herself for the sight, she looked down at her right arm. It had been cut off just above the elbow. The world spun for a moment, and Yang gasped for breath, blinking back tears. The stump was bleeding into bandages. Her aura had kicked in while she was out, presumably, because the bleeding had slowed and the pain was no longer all-consuming.  
  
She looked around. Ren and Nora were waiting anxiously in chairs near the door, bandaged but seemingly fine; Jaune, Sun and Neptune stood nearby and had no visible injuries.  
  
"Guys?" Yang asked.  The five of them turned at the sound of her voice.  
  
"You're awake," said Sun. "Good. The doc said you'll be fine, other than, you know." Neptune elbowed him and gave him a look.  
  
Yang nodded slowly. "Where's Ruby?"  
  
Sun shook his head. "She's not back yet. Last we heard, she and Weiss were headed to the tower to find Jaune and Pyrrha."  
  
At the mention of his and Pyrrha's names, Jaune spoke up in a hollow voice. Everyone turned to look at him, startled at how different he sounded from his usual goofy self. "There was this woman, and we were underground, and she killed a girl in I didn’t know, and then she started to glow and fly, and then Professor Ozpin sent us to get help, so we did. But then the tower shook and the woman was at the top of the tower and she was fine, so maybe Professor Ozpin isn’t fine? And then _Pyrrha_ ,” Jaune’s voice shook on her name, “Pyrrha went to go fight the woman at the top of the tower. I tried to tell her it was suicide but she went anyway. She..." His voice broke. "She... sent me to safety. I tried to stay and help but she pushed me into a locker and sent me to Vale. I called Weiss and asked her to help. That was the last I heard from any of the three of them."

An uneasy silence fell over the room. The news about Ozpin was ominous, and the fact that Pyrrha had sent Jaune away was not a good sign for what she thought of her own odds.

Jaune looked over at Yang. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you know your friend Emerald?” Yang nodded hesitantly, afraid of where this was going. If Em had died, she swore…

He continued, “What about her team leader, with the black hair and gold eyes?”

Yang nodded again, this time confused. “Yeah, her name’s Cinder, I think,” she said, recalling an offhand comment of Em’s.

“She was the woman. The one who killed the girl in the machine. The one Pyrrha went to go fight.”

“What?” Yang shouted, incredulous. “That can’t be tr-” She stopped suddenly. The voice. “Oh. _Oh_ . That _bitch_. That’s where I recognized the voice.”

“Voice?” asked Jaune.

Yang nodded. “After the fight - the tournament one, I mean - the speech. With the red screen and the chess piece. That was her. I recognized her voice but couldn’t place it until now.”

Neptune spoke up, “If that was her, _and_ she did what Jaune was talking about, she’s gotta be behind it to some degree.”

“But if that’s true,” said Yang, “then either Em had no idea, or she was forced into silence, or else…” She felt sick to her stomach. “She better worry about ‘or else.’”  
There was another pause before Nora spoke up. "Anyway, a little while after Weiss and Ruby went to find Pyrrha, the dragon flew right into Beacon Tower and knocked down the top of it!”

“What?” asked Yang.

“Yeah! And we have no idea whether Pyrrha or Ruby or Weiss were up there or not. All we know is, the CCT is down and people are going crazy! And then as we were getting on the airships to Vale, there was a HUGE flash of white light at the top of the tower, and the dragon froze up! Completely stopped!” Nora was gesticulating wildly as she spoke, causing Ren to dodge her hands and then wince at the sudden movement. “Either it was some ice dust or someone has a really cool semblance. Or maybe the dragon ran out of batteries. We’re not sure.”

Ren put a hand on Nora’s shoulder and told Yang, “Your uncle went to go find Ruby after that. He told us to stick together and stick with you, so we’re all here."  
  
Yang was glad for that, but getting nervous. Missing friend after missing family. No one had even mentioned Blake, and the last thing she remembered was Blake’s scream as a sword had left her stomach. Fearing the worst, Yang asked, "...what about Blake?"  
  
Most of them looked down or turned away. Sun walked over to a wall and leaned forward against it, propping himself on his arm, his face hidden.  
  
Yang’s heart skipped a beat and she started to tear up, her worst fears confirmed. "Is she...?"  
  
Sun spat, "No, she's _fine_. She healed up pretty quick and came with us to the city."  
  
Relieved but confused, she asked, "Then where is she?"  
  
"She ran off!" said Sun. Yang's heart sank. "She was, like, clinging to you the whole way here,” he continued, making no effort to hide the bitter jealousy that edged his words. “She wouldn't even let them treat her until they promised to keep her bed next to yours, made a whole scene about it. But as soon as she finished healing, she packed up her stuff and ran. I went after her but she ignored me and just left. No one's seen her since.”  
  
Yang sat in silence, her eyes watering. Looking down at her new stump, she fully realized exactly what she had done, and why; and now “why” had abandoned her without a word goodbye. She thought of Blake's words in Mountain Glenn, about chronically running away. She'd believed Blake was better than that, had even said as much to her at the time. But now Yang sat in a hospital bed, surrounded by her friends except for the one she needed most.  
  
The doors flew open. In walked Qrow, carrying an unconscious Ruby, flanked by nurses and followed by a solemn and tearful Weiss.

Yang sat bolt upright. “Ruby! Is she okay?”

Qrow set Ruby down on an empty hospital bed and the nurses began attending to her. “Yeah, she’ll be all right,” he said. “In other good news, the Dragon has been neutralized at the top of Beacon Tower, or what’s left of it. The last of the civilians have been evacuated from the school.”

Yang was completely confused, and about to demand some answers when suddenly Jaune collapsed and burst into loud, guttural sobbing. Everyone blanched and turned to look at him, except Qrow, who looked away, his expression solemn and unsurprised.

Jaune was kneeling on the floor, wailing, gingerly holding a scorched and warped ring of metal that was -Yang gasped, shock and grief beginning to bloom in her already reeling heart. It was Pyrrha’s tiara, burnt inside and out almost beyond recognition.

Weiss stood petrified in front of Jaune, her shaking hands still outstretched from handing him the tiara. Tears streamed down the side of her face. “I’m so, so sorry, Jaune.” Behind her, Nora and Ren were crying too: ever-stoic Ren was sobbing loudly into Nora’s shoulder, and Nora was frozen stiff, silent tears falling unchecked from wide eyes, her face contorted in grief.

Yang, too, began to cry, as everything that had happened that night came crashing down on her. The school was in ruins; a Grimm monster the likes of which had never been seen before had destroyed Beacon tower, knocking out global communications; Atlas’ military had turned on huntsmen and civilians alike, and then crashed; Professor Ozpin was missing and likely dead; Ruby was lying in a coma next to her; Blake had run away without a word; Yang herself no longer had a right arm; Penny had been graphically ripped apart before their eyes; and Pyrrha had died, heroically and horrifically and alone.


End file.
